Thursday

Rita's Digest: Evacuation

(The headline "Rita's Digest" stolen from The Daily Show)
Another monster is approaching the Gulf Coast. This one looks ever bit as menacing as Katrina. As of time of this post, models show that the Houston area is in the bulleye's of a Category 5 hurricane. Amazingly, these models are projecting that Rita could maintain hurricane strength all the way into north Texas. Even worse is that the current projection shows that the refineries near Houston will likely take a direct hit. These refineries account for 25% of our nation's refining capacity. There was a lot of talk among many economists that the gas price impact will be much worse than Katrina... $4/gallon or higher is very possible and $5/gallon is not out of the question, some are now saying.
My brother and his family are driving from Houston to stay with us here. People are heeding the evacuation warnings much more quickly in the wake of Katrina's disaster. But evacuating that many people out one of the nation's top 5 cities is quite a challenge. Yesterday evening, evacuees from Galveston were facing 12-hour trips just to get to Huntsville, a trip that you could normally make in about 2 hours.
If Rita maintains its strength, we may not see the human drama that we saw with Katrina, but we will indeed feel a much bigger impact on our short-term and long-term economy.